


When the sky turns gray (And what was right is wrong)

by PolynomialPandemic



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders is a Good Friend, Author Projecting Onto Roman Sanders, Complete, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders Angst, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders Needs a Hug, Cutting, Depressed Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, Dissociation, Gen, HS AU, Hurt, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Light Angst, Protective Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, References to Depression, Short One Shot, feel free to put on your shippy glasses but this is Ace-and-Aro-friendly, im here for that good good roman angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-19 06:42:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22473475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PolynomialPandemic/pseuds/PolynomialPandemic
Summary: When a field trip has Roman dissociating, Virgil gets worried for his friend. But he doesn't know that warning Princey about the mistakes he himself made might not have the effect he expected....'Cause if the last thing that I do, is to bring you downI'll bleed out for youSo I peel my skin, and I count my sinsAnd I close my eyes, and I take it inAnd I'm bleeding out, I'm bleeding out for you
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders
Comments: 4
Kudos: 57





	When the sky turns gray (And what was right is wrong)

**Author's Note:**

> Lyrics are from Bleeding Out by Imagine Dragons
> 
> TW:dissociation, described cutting, preparing to cut, NO ACTUAL CUTTING
> 
> This was something I started in 2018 and just found looking through my drive. I fixed the spelling errors and wrote a quick ending, but that's about it. I went on a field trip to a museum today, and it brought all this back up, I.E. I spaced the hell out and couldn't focus on anything but the pics and what the tour guide was saying…as usual. Good luck trying to talk to me about anything in a museum, it doesn't work.
> 
> Short asf bc I can't focus eheheheh
> 
> This is the old authors note:  
> So class, you all know about characters. However, now I am going to present you with another use for your favourites: PROJECTING! You just place those heavy, difficult feelings into your characters bodies so you can crush their soul and hopefully keep yours up!
> 
> In other words, I am legit re-writing my trip onto poor Virge and Ro. This was difficult because I feel like V would have already cut, and Roman would be new (hence my casting of them) but I am a Virgil, and my friend is a Roman….. So ….. 
> 
> In other words, at the art museum I was maybe kinda sorta disassociating but i was there everything just was different than it should be and everything meant different things and my friend caught my angst and told me about how it felt for her to cut and told me never to cut myself.  
> And I went home, and I cut myself for the first time lol 
> 
> Don’t get me wrong,I fucking love my friend, but really for me distraction is the only thing that snaps me out of these… mood, anxiety, things? I don’t know (she says I have anxiety, and probably depression. I am scared of therapists and also hella procrastinating, so yeet)  
> Anyways I love her and she writes fantasy novels, so she’ll often go off into a whole wonderful speech it'll either be like ‘we aren't human and will end up in the stars so it'll be ok’ (told you she was roman) which is so nice but even so I sometimes can't focus on it right then.

Roman’s colorful mind had gone numb. 

He didn’t know, couldn’t tell you exactly when, but by the time Mr. Sanders and the rest of his classmates had rounded the first wall of the photography exhibit, Roman wasn’t all there. The docent was talking about photos, a line of small, black-and-white photos on the wall. Roman walked past last, lagging behind, and not completely there. He stopped to read the plaque with information, ended up reading the first sentence of each paragraph, and kept moving. 

He hated field trips. 

The docent asked the group questions about interpretation, reasons for the color scheme. No-one answered. Mr. Sanders piped up after a minute showed the class’ unwillingness to respond. 

_ The black-and-white scheme, small size, and lack of people, all add to the nostalgic, deserted look. _

_ The pictures are alone. _

Roman mumbled something about the lack of people, very quietly. 

_ Of fucking course, you can’t ever be quiet, can you? _

Mr. Sanders picked up on it, though.

“Roman noticed the lack of people in the photos.”

“Very good!” the docent said. She continued talking, and from across the group, Virgil looked up. Probably clued in by Roman not speaking up himself. 

Dammit, he thought idly, why can’t I act? The one thing I’m good at is acting, and yet I can’t even really… be here. Properly.

Shit. 

Well, at least Virgil came over to him. Walking in front of the group with the pretence of examining the photos again. Roman gratefully shuffled a bit closer.

Virgil knew what was going on by now. He had that worried look on his face that simultaneously meant ‘dammit, Roman, did you space out?’ and ‘shit, he did it again.’

As the group moved onwards into the next room, Virgil stayed by Roman. 

_ Like the last time they came downtown with their class, when he stayed by Roman as Roman crumpled, as his hands went towards his ears, as his jacket wasn’t enough, when Virgil gave Roman his hoodie, and didn’t make Roman sit near the others, as Virgil looked calmly into eyes pouring with tears that couldn’t fall, tears that weren’t allowed to fall, because they would shatter the already much too loud streets and people. Virgil was the one who dug into Roman’s backpack, pulled out the beat-up red headphones with hand-drawn gold sharpie crowns. When Roman’s shaking fingers opened the phone, pulled up the white noise app he needed to sleep, and turned up the volume, when static covered the noise of the group and slowly, slowly, Roman started to come back, to joke and smile, to be present. _

Virgil stayed by Roman. Roman didn’t stay by Virgil, though.

He took time to read and look at each piece of art, knowing on some level that he should be following the group, but not caring much. Roman moved along the front of the group, towards a large photo of an elderly couple struggling with a vacuum. He wanted to read the sign. He needed to keep moving, keep reading. The back of the crowd was hell, with chaperones standing behind you an not seeing them.

A chaperone was standing next to the picture. Valerie’s parent. They raised the camera.

Roman heard the click, click play back in his head, as the class moved through the exhibit, remembering the startling noise the parent’s camera had snapped out into the world.

Noticed in sudden clarity the lens pointed at him, at  _ him, at only him, the angle was wrong there was no crowd behind him he would be alone he was looking now looking at the black circle and it was shining and wrong and they were going to push the button and his face must look wrong, he didn’t know how to do this oh god no this was wrong, not right not right notrightnotright- _

Roman shoved himself back, almost ran behind the last straggler and  _ out of the way  _ of the camera thank  _ god _ . Valerie’s parent looked confused but Roman can’t bring himself to care as he is suddenly hit with the weight of Virgil’s obviously worried step towards him, placing himself directly next to Roman (good) and the end of the panic. Shit, that was so stupid. What did Roman get so upset? Why was it so  _ wrong _ to be photoed? He felt fine now. Fuck.

When the group stopped in the next room, Virgil stayed close to Roman the whole time. As the guide starts talking about the creator’s art, Virgil talked quietly to him. 

“Why didn’t you want your photo taken?”

Quietly, Roman replied, “I- It was going to be bad.” 

He knew Virgil would get it. Roman was shaky and everything was slightly off, like seeing the world through Logan’s glasses. Everything took a while to come into focus. 

Virgil frowned. “Roman, you can’t keep doing this. It’s ridiculous.”

“What?” Roman was confused. Virgil’s words hurt.

“You seriously need to stop.” Virgil continued. 

_ What? But, he wasn’t trying to do this, it just happened sometimes on field trips, V knew that, right? He knew that.  _

Roman felt like his throat was swelling up, cutting off his air, his voice, letting in only Virgil’s words until his heart was ready to burst

“You can’t keep putting yourself down all the time. For goodness sakes, you are attractive, and you need to acknowledge it! I don’t care if you think you’re ugly, because that is completely untrue!” Virgil was definitely irritated. 

Roman did tend to put himself down, but that wasn’t what he was doing now, it wasn’t! HE wanted to tell Virgil that, but it wasn’t working. The docent’s words droned on, something about model cars and garbage cans and childhood homes. Roman knew he needed to listen, but when he did the words dropped right out of his head as soon as they fell in, like a trail of water dripping onto a bath mat when the shower door is open.

“- it really needs to stop, Ro.”

Roman opened his mouth halfway, and then it stammered closed. He tried again. His mouth didn't seem wired for speech right now.

“I-I, um. When i said it would be bad I, um didn’t mean  _ bad _ bad. Uh, I meant it would be wrong.”

Virgil raised an eyebrow. “Wrong? Roman, you don’t look  _ wrong _ , for goodness sake.”

“No,” Roman tried again, “No, it, um. It felt wrong.”

Virgil’s prickly(caring, worried) expression softened.

“Oh, sorry. Yeah, I get that. It’s totally fine that you didn’t want your picture taken. “

Roman fidgeted again. He pressed his poor fingernails together, bitten as far as they would go. By the time he was back on the bus, he knew both nails and cuticles would be practically gone.

“Today is, um-”  _ god  _ damnit. Roman tried again. “This field trip is not good and I feel like last time.”

Virgil's face fell. “Roman, you  _ really need to see someone about this.  _ Believe me, this is not healthy. I can help you find a therapist if you want”

“No.”

“It will just get worse. Believe me, if you get too far into this, it will eat you. It took a long time for me to get where I am, and hell I'll never really be 'better’.”

Roman nodded absently. Everything felt farther away than it was. He felt like he should be worried about that. 

"Have you been thinking about cutting again?"

Roman nodded slightly. The picture on the opposite wal, above the heads of the tour group they were supposed to be in, was a balck and white photo of a house burning. He traced the crumpling line of the garage roof with his eyes.

"Roman!" Virgil grabbed one of his hands, turning Roman sharply towards him, "You can't okay? You can't start that. "

He vaguely noted that his friend seemed more distraught. But the way the information was being inputted was wrong, and it didn't quite make it in.

"Believe me, once you start down that road…" Virgil dropped Roman's hand awkwardly to run his shaking one through his hair. 

"It eats you. I've been there Princey, hell, I've gone further. Cutting feels good. It feels perfect. You think you deserve it and all you want is to see the lines of red on your legs, to let out all the things you cant say or even process right, and it feels so fucking good to just slash out your hate. But it's a bad idea, Roman. Cutting is addictive, and I've just barely stopped, and-" 

Probably embarrassed at his rant, Virgil looked away, fidgeting with the friendship bracelet Patton had made for him in seventh grade.

"And just… please don't. I've been there, and it was shit for you guys, and Joan. I know that Talyn would feel crushed if they found out, and for your parent, they really are trying their best…"

Roman still felt spacey. Eye contact wasn't working, but the piece of gum stuck to the railing just above and behind Virgil's left shoulder was something he felt might be possible to focus on.

Virgil was right. Cutting would be shit. And addictive. And bad in many ways. He vaguely sifted through a mental image of Logan and Patton, saddened, of Virgil staring disappointingly. None of them really seemed to hurt like he knew they should. 

His mind flitted back to the way his friend had described cutting. The pain. Those had hurt like they should, Virgil said. Like he had thought he deserved.

Like Roman knew he deserved.

  
  
  


The night after the field trip, on the toilet seat at home, clutching a cotton ball in one hand and a spare X-acto knife blade in the other, Roman was prepared to give himself exactly what he deserved.


End file.
